Friday, October 14, 2011

Chocolate Sampler! Fabric Giveaway! Yum!

Ok, so not that kind of chocolate sampler! I'm referring to my version of the Christmas Sampler being designed by Melissa of SewBitterSweetDesigns! Her blocks are so irresistible that, if you look, you'll want to quilt along. That's what happened to me - it was never a question of whether or not I wanted to make this quilt . . . only which fabrics to use. My favorite Christmas fabric in the store right now is Santa's Chocolate Shoppe. And the quilt is a "sampler" . . . so . . . well . . . you get it.
Melissa and I have been working together recently on several things and in the midst of that I decided that I'd better get going on this.

I've jumped ahead a little to try the Snail's Trail block, and I'm including a tutorial in this post on how I did it. Then Melissa's going to use my tute to make her vintage fabric block. Fun!

I've also decided to try something really different and use a rich chocolate brown Kona cotton as my background color.

Here's what I did. This will be for a 12" finished (12-1/2" unfinished) block and will use 2 contrasting fabrics.

Cut each of the remaining squares diagonally to make half square triangles. We'll refer to these in sets - small, medium, large.

Construction.

First, make a 4-patch from the (4) 2-5/8" squares, using a scant 1/4' seam allowance:

Lay the completed and pressed 4-patch on the table and select the 2 smallest HSTs that match the fabric in the upper left hand corner of the 4-patch. Sew one to the top and one to the bottom of the 4-patch unit. Press.

Next attach the remaining small triangles to the side seams and press.

Then, attach the middle sized triangles to the block, matching the same fabrics from the left, as shown below:

* * *

sample of wrong way below: If this block were rotated 1/4 turn, the brown solid will be to the left rather than the print, which would stop the "spiraling" of the fabrics:

* * *

Continue attaching the medium and large triangles to the block (pressing after stitching).

Watch to make sure the spiral always goes the same direction. Trim the little dog ears and square up the block to 12-1/2", if necessary.

Oh yeah! The giveaway. :) Jump over to Melissa's SewBitterSweetDesigns blog and find out how to enter the drawing for a Ten Square bundle of super-funky O' Tinsel Tree fabrics. They'd sure make a cute Christmas Sampler!

I found you via Sew Bitter Sweet Designs and glad I did as I'm a new follower now. I love the dark fabric you used on your sampler. It really does make the block pop. I'm making a mental note to self.Thanks for the tutorial.

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